


Cats Adopt You

by steampunkcircus



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-07-11 23:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15982949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steampunkcircus/pseuds/steampunkcircus
Summary: Nathalie wakes to find a cat in her kitchen. She didn't have a cat. But since he's here, might as well take care of him. Or maybe he's taking care of her?





	1. There's a cat in my kitchen. I don't have a cat.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just one of those ideas I love. Adrien visiting Nathalie as Chat and them getting to know each other outside their usual dynamic. There will be little to no plot, just drabbles in this universe.  
> Onward!

Nathalie never got a cat because she thought she wouldn't be home enough to care for it.

Then a cat adopted her.

Nathalie woke in the middle of the night to a strange noise in the kitchen. She wasn't particularly worried. She worked for Hawkmoth, so either this was his fault, or it was his responsibility to her to protect her from whatever normal burglar was causing her problems. She solved enough of his problems to be owed that much.

Thus, she stumbled from her bedroom in her pajamas with no glasses. She did not bother to pick up the fire poker as a makeshift weapon on her way to the kitchen.

She found Chat Noir sitting on her dining room table eating a sandwich.

"How did you even get in here?" she asked.

"Balcony," he said around a mouthful of her food.

"And why did you break into my home to eat my food?"

"Because Ladybug and I are fighting an akuma and I was so hungry I almost passed out. She sent me away until I'd eaten." He said this like it was a normal occurrence. For the first time since she woke she felt a bit of worry creep into the edges of her mind.

"It's past midnight," she said. "Why are you going to bed that hungry?"

"Uh... Reasons?" He swallowed the last bite of sandwich and jumped up to pour himself a glass of juice.

"Why my apartment?" she asked.

He hesitated, gulped down the juice, then rinsed his cup in the sink.

"I uh... I've seen you around. You looked like the kind of person who wouldn't overreact to a superhero breaking in for a snack." He averted his eyes, his cat ears flattening a bit. "Also, I figured you'd still be at work."

"Usually, I would be," she said. "I had a migraine this afternoon and have been here, asleep, since about three."

"Oh. That sucks."

She shrugged and nodded. "I get one every two or three years, so I try not to complain."

It was strange that there was another person in her home, but the second he went to leave, she found herself calling out before he could reach the balcony door.

"You can come back," she said. "If you need to. I have a well stocked first aid kit. My kitchen is underutilized. I have a spare bedroom that locks if you need a place to sleep."

He looked surprised. "Oh, no, I'm-"

"You almost passed out from hunger," she said. "Clearly something in your home life is lacking."

"Not... exactly..." he said, shifting around and not meeting her eyes.

"You're safe here," she said. "If you need to be."

Chat Noir looked up at her, tears in his eyes taking her off guard.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll uh... I might stop by again."

"I'll leave the balcony unlocked."

She watched Chat Noir bound into the night towards an unnatural blue glow coming from a few blocks away. She knew she would be seeing him again. It was a good feeling.  
  



	2. A Kitty Scratching at the Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathalie and Chat talk after an akuma targets her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's back! Chat and Nathalie and their weird friendship, here for your reading pleasure!

It was an embarrassingly long time before Nathalie became aware of the scratching sound. She looked up from her laptop's screen saver that had been playing in front of her for who-knows-how-long. Nothing seemed off- Wait, there, the balcony. She crossed the room to stand on the other side of the glass from Chat Noir. He was pawing and scratching at the door with a pathetic look on his face.

"You came back," she said, opening the door to allow him in. His ears were back and his tail was twitchy. "Are you okay?"

"It was my fault you were hit by Pencil Pusher," he said. "I know you're okay because of the Miraculous Cure, but... I'm so sorry you were hit anyway."

"It was all my fault," she said. She hadn't realized it was weighing on her until she was guiding the teenage superhero to her couch to sit and tell him everything. "Apparently Tedd from Accounting had been criticized and antagonized multiple times today. I was the last person to see him before his akumatization, and I was not patient with him. He owed me a report, and I knew my employer would be difficult if I didn't return with it. My treatment of him was the final straw before..." She sighed to keep herself from focusing on how she truly felt. "I've sent him an apology email and plan to perform an informal audit of his department to determine what is causing his work stress and rectify the department. After that, I'll probably-"

"Nathalie- Ms. Sancoeur-" Chat Noir cut himself off, looking confused.

Before Chat could make up his mind, Nathalie said, "You can call me Nathalie. That's what my employer's son calls me. Now that I've seen you up close, you're probably only a bit older than him."

Chat smiled. "Nathalie, I'm sure he'll forgive you. I know that I, uh, don't know you very well, but I bet people know you mean well.”

“Meaning well doesn’t change the result," she said with a frown.

"No," Chat said with a little smile, "but still, you shouldn’t feel responsible for what happened to your coworker. He was akumatized because Hawkmoth chose to akumatize him. You might have been short with him, but everything that happened today was Hawkmoth's fault."

Nathalie raced for a way out of this conversation. She wasn't letting herself off the hook that easily. She wasn't nearly as innocent as Chat Noir believed, especially since she enabled Hawkmoth to further his villainous mission every day. She found her escape in the reason Chat had shown up on her doorstep in the first place.

"That means you also shouldn't blame yourself for my injury earlier today," she said. His ears flattened again. Without thinking, she reached out to his head to brush back his hair. As though he really was a cat, he pushed against her hand. She pet his hair, avoiding the strange cat ears as best she could and wondered how such a kind, selfless child was so touch starved he was letting a stranger treat him like a pet cat.

"You are not responsible for this world," Nathalie said, watching him relax and take in her words. "I hope you're getting this message at home, too. If you're not, though, you need to know that you are not valuable because of what you do for other people, who you help, your actions, your contributions. You are valuable because you are."

Chat blinked at her slowly, pulling his boots up under him on the couch and leaning towards her a little. Her arm was getting tired, but she continued to comfort him and herself with her hand on his hair.

"You shouldn't worry about me so much," he said. She unconsciously stopped petting him when he spoke, but he nudged her hand with a bob of his head and she started up again.

"I spend most of my day worrying about a boy and his father," she said. "Adding you to the list isn't out of my way."

They sat on the couch for a while, watching the city out past the balcony as the number of lights slowly decreased as the evening wore on.

"Are you sure you're okay at home?" Nathalie asked, realizing the time of night and that most families would be wondering where their child was at this hour.

"Hmm?" Chat blinked slowly at her. "Oh, yeah. There's been some... stuff, but it's okay. I have family, and people, and school, and work, and I'm happy."

"Work? You're a child."

"Not... not work-work. I like my work. It's fun. It's a family business kind of thing. It's not the only thing I want to do with my life, but I like doing it for now, and I'm good at it, and being good at it is a nice feeling, and-"

"Okay," she said. "I doubt you would tell me if something was wrong anyway. But you're probably going to be missed at home if you don't return soon. I don't want you getting in trouble on my account."

Chat stretched like a cat as he stood. Nathalie stood with him. They walked to the balcony door, and he hesitated.

"You promise you won't beat yourself up about this any longer?" he asked.

“I'm fine," she said. "And my door- my balcony door- is always open. Whether I'm here or not, you can be here if you need to. If you need somewhere to hide or detransform or get away from home, you can come here. Even just stop in for a snack."

Nathalie saw more of Chat's green sclera than she wanted to as his eyes widened for a second. Had it not been for their unnatural color, she might not have noticed. It took her only a second to interpret the facial expression he flashed.

"Do you want something to eat before you go?" she asked, gesturing back towards the kitchen.

"No, I don't want to inconven-"

"I'm making myself a sandwich," she said, correcting course in her attempt to feed him. "If I made two, would you like one?"

Chat nodded and followed her to the kitchen. He watched her prepare their meal with rapt attention.

"So, I believe you're in the fashion industry?" Chat asked. Nathalie nodded. "What do you think of that very, very purple outfit from last week's-"

"The grape monstrosity from that local failing company? Desperate bid for attention."

They talked fashion as they ate until Nathalie noticed the time again and all but chased him out the door.

Adrien arrived back in his bedroom that night with a full belly and wondered if it would be hard to become friends with Nathalie as himself. She was a nice friend to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk with me over at [cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com](https://cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com/) if you like :)


	3. Don't You Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More "oh hey look, there's a cat". This time he brought a present.

Nathalie had her shoes off before she even reached the door to her apartment. She had her hair down before she was done unlocking the door. She had ordered food to be delivered before leaving work. She had a date planned with her couch and a season of a Korean drama. Adrien had recently informed her that she did _not_ know what “Netflix and chill” meant, but she did, in fact, plan on chilling while watching Netflix that night. 

Except there was a cat boy asleep on her couch. 

Nathalie froze with the door half closed behind her. Was he okay? Was he breathing? She crept towards him until she was sure he was breathing, then went back and closed the door. She tiptoed to her bedroom, eased that door open, and closed again behind her. Once she had changed out of her work clothes, she went to the kitchen, trying to figure out if she could retrieve her food and eat without waking him. At least if he did wake up, she was pretty sure she had enough food for him too. Eventually, she decided to wait in front of the apartment building for her dinner, so the delivery man wouldn't ring the bell. She took her food back upstairs and settled at the kitchen table, opening every container as quietly as possible. She was feeling proud of her skills being quiet (and trying not to think about how they were probably well honed from avoiding Gabriel's attention when he was in one of his moods) when there was a thump from the living room. 

"I fell asleep," Chat said, pulling out the other chair to the small table. The table in front of him was covered in unsorted mail from the previous week. He ignored it to lean his arms on the table and lay his head on his arms so he could see Nathalie. 

"You were out. I didn't want to bother you. At your age, you need all the sleep you can get." 

"You don't know how old I am," Chat said. He blinked slowly, sleepily. It only made him look younger. 

"I can guess. You're definitely young." He was about Adrien's age, if her guess was right. 

Chat shrugged. "I figured you'd be home a while ago. I didn't mean to just show up and-" 

"I told you to 'just show up and'," Nathalie said. "I want you to just show up. Take naps on my couch, eat my food, talk to me, don’t talk to me, watch my TV, use my computer. Whatever you need." She nodded to the food before her "Do you want me to grab you a plate? I always get enough to have leftovers, so I don't have to make as many meals the next couple days." 

Chat nodded. "If you don't mind." 

Nathalie got Chat Noir a plate and cutlery and they settled back down.

“How's saving Paris going?” Nathalie asked.

“Eh, same as usual. We show up, I flirt, Ladybug saves the day.”

“Sounds…” She struggled to find the right word. “Fun?”

Chat shrugged. “It can be.” He poked at the meal before him for a moment. “I wouldn't trade it for anything short of defeating Hawkmoth.”

Well, what could she possibly say to that? She was working for Hawkmoth. She supported Hawkmoth. Enabled him. Hawkmoth being defeated would probably end badly for her.

Change the subject.

“How's school?" 

Chat smiled. "I like it. My friends are great, and the lessons are really cool." He frowned. "I probably shouldn't say any more though. Just in case you know someone at my school or something." 

Nathalie nodded. They ate quietly for a moment. She wondered at the fact that Chat had somehow ended up in the home of one of the only people in Paris who had a secret similar to his. 

"How's work?" 

Nathalie froze. 

"I don't want to talk about work," she said. 

"Okay," Chat Noir said. He leaned across the table and used his fingers to pick up the peppers she had been pushing to the side of her dish. "Have you ever thought about getting a cat?" 

"I already have one, apparently," she said, batting his hand away from her plate and moving her plate next to his to scoop the peppers from one to the other. 

"You just seem like a cat person, is all I'm saying." He smiled around a mouthful of peppers. 

"I'm never home. How would I care for it? It would be lonely." 

"Doesn't that mean that when you're here alone, you're lonely?" 

She gave him a flat look. 

"You're saying you're not lonely?" Chat raised an eyebrow. "You invited a stranger with superpowers to hangout whenever he wants." 

"You do a lot for the city. I can't try to repay that sacrifice with what I have to offer?" 

Chat shook his head, a small smile fighting to break over his face. "Your secret nice side is hard for you to deal with, huh?" 

Nathalie was surprised enough to laugh out loud. 

"Don't push it," she said, adjusting her glasses and looking down at her meal. 

"Actually," Chat said, stretching out the word, "I have a present for you. To say thank you." 

"You don't need to-" 

"Please? It would mean a lot to me. It would make me feel like I'm not just crashing your apartment and only taking." He gave her the kitten eyes. "Please?" 

Nathalie sighed. She was immune to the kitten eyes after dealing with four year old Adrien Agreste. But if it would make Chat more comfortable… 

"Alright," she said. "So long as it's not a dead bird or something." 

"A dead bird? I'm not a _real_ cat, you know." Chat crossed his arms, turning away with his nose in the air. 

"You're more cat than you think.” 

"Well, that's not what I got you," he said. "You promise you'll at least try to like it?" 

Those were never good words to hear. "I'll… try." 

Chat Noir stood and walked behind her. She wondered if he had left her present in the other room and she just hadn't seen it. Instead, she heard him stop behind her, then the sound of one of his zippered pockets opening. 

"Don't turn around," Chat said. Also not good words to hear. 

"What are you doing?" 

Something brushed Nathalie's head, and she reached up to feel… What even was that? 

"No, hold still!" Chat batted her hand away. 

"What are you doing?" 

"Giving you your-" 

Nathalie snatched whatever Chat was putting on her head from his hands and held it in front of her. 

"No." 

It was a headband with cat ears. 

"Just put them on!" Chat said, making a grab for them. She leaned out of his reach. 

"Absolutely not." 

Chat managed to wrestle the headband from Nathalie. 

"Just put them on!"

"Get those away from my head _now_."

"But then we'll match!"

"You're trying to get me akumatized, aren't you?"

"Please? Just one picture of the two us!"

"Don’t you _dare_."

Five minutes and a promise that the picture would only be for him, Chat Noir's new baton screen background was a picture of Chat grinning with his arm around cat-ear-wearing-Nathalie who couldn't stop her smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk with me over at [cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com](https://cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com/) if you like :)


	4. My Cat Is Confused by the Vacuum Cleaner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien tries to help Nathalie the only way he can think of. He's missing some skills though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the “appropriate vegetable” thing from January, if you follow me on tumblr.

Adrien snuck a glance at Plagg out of the corner of his eye. He seemed in a good enough mood.

"Plagg..."

Plagg crossed his little arms, turning his face away from Adrien. "Nope. I know exactly what you're thinking, and it's a bad idea."

Adrien had watched Nathalie gather her things to leave work at the end of the day. She moved slowly, her shoulders hunched like she was carrying a physical weight. Adrien had heard his father yelling at her earlier, and it had gone on for a while. There had been two akuma attacks that day, so he had had to slip out of her care for a while to take care of that. The akuma who had made all pictures turn into pictures of her cat had slowed Gabriel's work down considerably. Adrien was pretty sure Nathalie had taken the blame for that roadblock, too. She didn't notice Adrien watching her as she left, heading straight for the door. The time she usually left work was hours past.

"She's basically family, Plagg! I can't go cheer up family when I know she's had a bad day?"

"It's bad enough you know half the people who get akumatized. You really shouldn't be running around intentionally seeking out people you know as Adrien. It's not a good idea."

"Plagg... this is important to me," Adrien said. "I know it doesn't seem like it sometimes, but Nathalie cares for me. Both Adrien-me and Chat-me. She convinced Father to let me go to school. She brought people over for Christmas. Before you got here, she would homeschool me on top of helping Father with the company. This is important, Plagg. I'm going."

Something about the appeal worked, and Plagg nodded. Adrien transformed immediately. He formed his plan as he ran across the city, so he had to double back halfway to Nathalie's when an idea struck. He detransformed, raced around the house, shoved supplies in a bag, ran back to his room, transformed again, and raced to Nathalie's.

She was asleep on the couch by the time he got there and got the balcony door open. Her heels were kicked to the floor between the couch and coffee table, her glasses dangling from one hand. Chat eased the glasses from her hand and set them on the table. Using his miraculous-enhanced stealth, Chat set about his tasks.

Nathalie woke to an unfamiliar smell in her apartment. Had she left something on the stove? No, she hadn't even gotten to the kitchen after she got home. She had collapsed on the couch and barely removed her glasses before passing out. Where were her glasses? She reached out and knocked them from the coffee table to the floor. She growled a few creative curses and wrangled the lenses in front of her face.

"Oh, good, you're up!" Chat's head poked out of her kitchen, a pink, frilly apron over his super suit. Nathalie did not own an apron. "I thought I heard something. Dinner's almost ready."

"Dinner?" Nathalie tripped over her shoes on her way to the kitchen. Two plates sat side by side on the counter. Each had a handful of limp salad from Nathalie's fridge and a cup of applesauce. One had a burnt piece of something that Nathalie couldn't identify.

"How did you not set off the fire alarm?" she asked, picking up a corner of the unidentified food object.

"I took the batteries out before starting." He pointed to batteries on the dining room table with a spatula. The dining room table that was clear of papers and looked like it had been cleaned with something other than Nathalie's sleeve.

"Chat? What's going on?" Nathalie sat at her clean table and resisted the urge to rub at her eyes, knowing it would only smear whatever eye makeup she still had on.

"I'm making dinner." He lifted something from the skillet on the stove and set it on the second plate. He turned off the stove and brought the plates to the table, then went back for silverware and glasses of water.

"Where did all the stuff on the table go?" she asked, stopping him from eating the blackened food object on his plate with a hand on his.

"I recycled some of it- only things that you clearly wouldn't need any more, like empty envelopes- and organized the rest into piles by type of paper. They're in folders on your desk."

"Where did you find folders?"

"In one of the drawers that I cleaned out."

"How long have you been here?"

She looked around the apartment. She had been neglecting it, she knew that, but work had been terrible this week. But now, the dishes were done, the clutter in the living room cleaned up, her shoes by the door returned to the shoe rack instead of the pile she had left them in. And that was just what she could see from where she was sitting.

"I mean, not that long. I was going to vacuum, too, but that would have woken you up, and also I don't know how to work a vacuum."

"You don't know how to vacuum?" What kind of child had never vacuumed? What were his parents teaching him?

"Uh, no, I don't." He looked down at his plate, then over at hers. "I hope you like grilled cheese. Thankfully, I only burned one of the sandwiches!"

Grilled cheese. That's what the charred brick on Chat's plate was. She looked at her own plate to find a cooked, slightly torn grilled cheese.

"You came over to make me grilled cheese and clean my apartment?"

Chat took in the lost look on Nathalie's face. She was so much more expressive in her home than in his. Then again, he would bet he was also more expressive here than there.

"I happened to see you recently. As civilian-me. You didn't see me, so that's not telling you anything dangerous. You looked like you could use a break. And you've been so..." He felt the prickle in his sinuses that meant he might cry. He took a breath, hoping to appear normal. "I like coming here. You've done a lot for me that you didn't need to do, that was out of your way. I wanted to help you in this little way, for all you've done for-"

Nathalie cut him off with a hug. He returned it with a ferocity that tore at her heart.

"You're a good boy, Chat Noir. Thank you."

Nathalie talked Chat into splitting her un-charred sandwich. After, she spent the rest of the evening teaching him how to do basic household chores. He was a quick learner, and it had the bonus effect of giving her a clean apartment. Nathalie offered to watch a movie before he had to go home, but Chat insisted she needed to sleep.

"I don't want you to feel like you _have_ to take care of me. Like you're at all responsible for me," she said, walking him to the balcony door. "This was wonderfully kind of you, but I get the feeling you blame yourself for things you can't control."

"Yeah, that's what everyone tells me," Chat said with a smirk. "Goodnight, Nathalie!"

The next day, when Nathalie had a free moment, she hunted Adrien down in his room.

"Has anyone taught you how to use a vacuum?"

Nathalie could have sworn Adrien looked scared for a moment before he pasted on a model smile. "I've never had to use one before. We've had housekeepers as long as I remember."

"Well, it's a life skill everyone should have," Nathalie said. "I'll schedule a few short sessions so I can teach you basic home care and cleaning skills. I know it sounds boring, but-"

"It sounds great, Nathalie."

Nathalie could have sworn, those first few lessons, that Adrien was playing dumb. Why she didn't know, but if Chat Noir could pick up mopping on the first try, Adrien should have had no problem. Maybe they were less alike than she had thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk with me over at [cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com](https://cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com/) if you like :)


	5. Secret Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathalie would be one of those moms who makes you put on a jacket because she's cold.

"You're going to freeze out there," Nathalie said, grabbing a coat from the hook near her front door. "Put this on."

Chat Noir looked down at his super suit, then up at Nathalie. "I don't feel cold when I'm like this. I mean, I can feel that it is cold, but it doesn't bother me."

"So? Put on the coat before you leave." She tried to wrangle the coat over his shoulders as he squirmed away from her.

"I don't need a coat, Nathalie," Chat said, grabbing hold of the coat so she couldn't keep trying to get it on him. "I'm perfectly comfortable, healthy, and safe like this. I run around all the time in the cold like this, and I've never had a problem."

She evaluated him for a minute. "What about at home? Do you have-"

"I have a coat at home!" He was no longer able to contain the laughter in his voice. "You would approve of how weather-appropriately I dress on a normal day. I promise."

She squinted at him but took the coat back. "Why don't I believe you?"

He laughed again and gave her a hug. "Good night, Nathalie."

She waved to him from her balcony for a second before hurrying inside to pull a blanket over her shoulders. She decided this wasn't enough and started making tea. While waiting for the water to boil, an idea occurred to her.

"He won't be able to refuse _that_ ," she muttered, carrying her mug back to her couch. She pulled out her tablet and started her research.

/*****/

"Hi, Nathalie! Can I borrow your phone? I need to look something up before I see Ladybug. I kinda forgot before I left, and the screen on the baton is too small to read fast."

Nathalie shoved something under the couch cushion before Chat could see and held out her phone.

"Thanks!" He tapped away at the screen for a minute before nodding and handing it back. "I was right. I can't believe she ever challenged me about anime versus manga facts in the first place. See you later!"

He was out the door a second later, and Nathalie sighed in relief. She would have to remember to keep the project in her room where he couldn't see it walking in the door.

/*****/

"Thanks for dinner," Nathalie said, clearing the takeout boxes from the table. "Do you have to rush home?"

"Nope!" Chat said, gathering the plates and silverware to add to the dishwasher. "Did you want to watch a movie or try and teach me that card game again?"

"Sure, we can do that," Nathalie said. "But I have something for you first."

"Nathalie..." Chat trailed off shifting from foot to foot as his belt tail started flicking back and forth. "I'm not sure that's... a good idea. Secret identity, and..."

"I knitted you a sweater," she said, holding it up for him. It was black and plain. "There are no defining features, and my knitting is good enough to not have noticeable flaws that could be used to recognize it. If I saw a boy your age in this sweater, It wouldn't even enter my mind that he might be you."

Wide kitten eyes and lowered kitten ears looked up at Nathalie. "You made this for me?"

"I did. I know you said you're fine, but you can never have too many warm sweaters, can you?"

Chat reached out to take the sweater, looking at it like had never gotten a present before.

"You made it by hand so that I couldn't say no."

It wasn't an accusation, just a realization.

Nathalie shrugged. "So, card game?"

Chat nodded. Nathalie led the way to the couch. When Chat sat next to her, he was wearing the sweater over his super suit.

Nathalie reached out to ruffle his hair. "You're a good kid, Chat Noir."

"You're a good person, Nathalie."

 _Not as much as you believe_ , she thought. Gabriel could never know about her new friend.

She dealt the cards and tried to keep her mind on the game the rest of the night.

/*****/

When Chat Noir landed in his room and detransformed that night, the first thing he did was run his hand over the sleeve of his new sweater.

"Kid, you can't keep that," Plagg said, crossing his arms. "Nathalie is around all the time. She could see it in your room."

"That's why she made it plain," Adrien said, taking it off and laying it carefully on his bed. He went to change into pajamas. "Even if she saw it, I have two other sweaters that look like it."

"Those ones have tags. What if she notices it doesn't have tags?"

"You worry too much, Plagg." Adrien pulled the sweater over his pajama top and crawled in bed.

"At least hide it," Plagg said, flying over to grab some cheese. He brought it to the pillow next to Adrien and gave it a good sniff before swallowing it whole. "Don't keep it with your other clothes. Put it somewhere she wouldn't look."

"I will, I promise."

Adrien and Plagg drifted off to sleep soon after. When his alarm woke them the next day, Adrien folded his sweater and stuck it under his pillow before perfectly making his bed.

"Not the best hiding place," Plagg said, "but also not the worst."

"Adrien?" Nathalie knocked on the door. "Your father wants to see you before you leave for school."

"Okay, thanks, Nathalie!"

She left without another word.

"Isn't it weird?" Plagg asked. "Having her be so friendly sometimes and doing a robot impression the rest of the time?"

"I think it's because Father scares her," Adrien said, gathering his things for the day. "Everyone acts different in different situations. So long as Nathalie has a nice side, I think it's fine she doesn't bring it out all the time."

"Yeah..." Plagg said. "There's just something off about her."

"I'm sure it's nothing. Grab some Camembert, and let's get downstairs."

Plagg peeked out of Adrien's shirt in Gabriel's office, eyes trained on Nathalie. She was up to something. He just didn't know what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk with me over at [cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com](https://cheeseeatingtrashmonster.tumblr.com/)! I could use suggestions if you have anything you would like to see these unlikely friends do :)


End file.
